The advent of the personal computer has led to dramatic changes in the office environment, and particularly in the local work stations of individual employees. In that regard, the prevalence of personal computers has placed a premium on work surface space. Consequently, various mounting hardware has been developed which enables keyboards and ancillary devices to be conveniently stored below the work surface when not in use, yet easily pulled out from beneath the work surface when needed. Hence, these mounting systems maximize the work surface space available to the user.
One such device which has heretofore been available is a metallic slide out document holder sold by Proformix, Inc., the assignee of the present application, under model number PR-0210ICH. This document holder consists of a substantially fiat top metal plate which is pivotally mounted to a substantially fiat bottom metal plate by a pair of tabs which project laterally outward from one end of the top plate and which are received within a pair of holes at one end of the upwardly bent longitudinal side edges of the bottom plate. A pair of document support arms are pivotally connected to the top plate and can be extended therefrom to increase the support surface of the document holder. The document holder may be mounted to the underside of a work surface by a pair of spaced apart guide rails having channels in which the side edges of the bottom plate can slide. The end of the bottom plate adjacent the hinged connection is also bent upwardly to provide a grasping surface for moving the document holder under and out from the work surface.
There have been several drawbacks to the slide out document holder described above. One of these drawbacks has been the fact that its metal construction has caused the document holder to be heavy and to not operate smoothly with plastic molded guide rails. Another drawback has been the lack of versatility of the document holder. That is, because the top and bottom plates are fixedly connected together, the top plate cannot be removed from the bottom plate and replaced with a device which serves a different purpose than the document holder without bending and damaging the bottom plate in the process.
There therefore exists a need for a slide-out unit incorporating a document holder in which the document holder can be easily removed and replaced with a different device, such as a marking board, a message board, etc. Preferably, such slide-out unit will have a simple construction such that it can be manufactured easily and inexpensively from plastic materials.